Jocelyn Murphy
by CRebel
Summary: "It was a Winchester thing. Which may or may not have made it Jocelyn's problem, depending on who she asked." Jocelyn Murphy has been under the Winchesters' care since she was ten years old. Now, at sixteen, the man she wishes had been her father has gone missing, and Jocelyn is one of the three people ready to go to hell and back to find him.
1. Happy Halloween

**(From the private journal of Jocelyn Murphy)**

_9:45 p.m., Oct 22_

_Dean and I are still in New Orleans. Job's done, we're supposed to meet up with John, but we haven't heard from him since we went to California. That was two weeks ago. This is bad._

_. . . . . _

_10:50 p.m., Oct 27_

_It's been almost three weeks since John went to California and still no word. We called everyone who might have heard from him. Even my dad. Nothing. It's been too long. Dean's worried, won't say it, but he is. So am I._

_. . . . . _

_12:45 a.m., Oct 31_

_Dean got a voicemail today – yesterday – from John. All J said was that something big was happening, we need to be careful, we're all in danger. . . Nothing about where he is, no details of what he's hunting, but there was EVP on the voicemail. We cleaned it up, got "I can never go home." Sounded like a woman. D's more worried now. Don't think he can wait much longer. Good. _

_. . . . . _

. . . . .

. . . . .

BANG BANG BANG.

Pause.

BANG BANG BANG.

Dean waited again, looking over his shoulder at the half-full parking lot. His eyes spared no time landing on Impala, the only halfway-decent car at this roadside hole-in-the-wall of a motel. Jocelyn's motorcycle sat close by, and the need to burn some rubber flared up in Dean, so he whirled around, pounded on the motel door some more.

_BANG BANG – _

It opened. Jocelyn appeared.

Dressed in sweats and one of John's old shirts, with her dark hair a mess and her face set in an I-was-sleeping-you-asshole grimace, she could have passed for any other sixteen-year-old unexpectedly roused. Except for the dagger hanging from her hand.

Dean grinned. "Happy Halloween."

"Bite me." She leaned against the frame, flinched against the sunlight. "You scared the hell out of me. This is why we get keys to each other's rooms, you know."

"Couldn't find it," Dean lied. He hadn't been thinking very clearly this morning, had only wanted to get on the road.

"You could've called my phone."

"God, you're irritating when you whine. Look –" He nodded at the Styrofoam cups in his hands. "I brought you coffee. Now shut up."

She sighed and wiggled fingers at the offering. He gave her a cup, she took a long sip, rubbed her mouth and then her forehead, and guilt tugged at Dean the whole time. She was too pale. Grey bags had made themselves at home under her eyes. Maybe –

No. He had spent most of last night and most of this morning thinking over today, and he wasn't about to change his mind now. Couldn't. "Chug that fast. We need to go."

"John?"

"Yep." Not a lie. His plan to get Sam was _part_ of his plan to find John. He just wouldn't explain the connection to Jocelyn until he had her miles away, in a diner somewhere, too late to turn back.

"Give me ten minutes."

"Hey, brush you hair!" he called as she shut the door. "I'm not lookin' at that all day."

There was a loud _bang_ that rattled the doorknob, and Dean figured something had just been chucked at his head.

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

**(From the private journal of Jocelyn Murphy)**

_10:30 a.m., Oct 31_

_Dean got me 7:00 this morning. Handed me coffee and said let's roll. I thought we were going to Jericho. Wasn't until we were at a diner for some late breakfast that he said "Stanford" and I realized what his plan was._

_I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't listen. We're going to get Sam. Dean says he deserves to be a part of this. _

_I argued some more. Nothing. I told him fine, I'll just go to Jericho on my own, because I want nothing to do with Sam, not after all this time. But D went all John on me and said hell no, he already couldn't find his dad and he wasn't about to let me out of his sight, too. Which was kind of sweet, but infuriating. The whole thing's kind of infuriating._

_He's jumping to this too fast. He and I could find John on our own. Sam hasn't hunted in years. And he probably doesn't give a damn about John._

_But Dean won't listen to me._

_I don't like this._


	2. Stanford

Dean turned on the step and looked up at his little brother. "Now are you gonna come with me or not?"

Sam didn't blink. "I'm not."

"_Why_ not?"

"I swore I was done hunting. For good." The younger Winchester worked to keep his voice down – they were standing on a staircase in his apartment building, and the thought of waking everyone up in the middle of the night with a screaming match over demon hunting really wasn't appealing.

"Come on." Dean headed down the remaining stairs. "It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad."

"Yeah?" Sam followed Dean down and right up to the nearest exit, a door with a curving window that brought white light flooding in from the alley outside. "When I told Dad that I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45."

"Well, what was he supposed to do?"

"I was _nine years old_. He was supposed to say don't be afraid of the dark."

"Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark! You know what's out there!"

"Yeah, I know . . . but still, the way we grew up after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. And dragging Jocelyn around like it was her fight –"

"It _is _her fight, Sam. It's been six years since Pastor Jim had us take her. She never even talks to him if she can help it, she considers us her family, and she wants to find the demon that killed Mom as much as we do –"

"But after all these years, we _still _haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we _can _find!"

"And save a lot of people doin' it, too."

Silence. Neither of them looked away from the other, and then Sam went for it, the soft spot, even though he knew it was wrong: "You think Mom would have wanted this for us?"

That's when Dean shoved open the door – hard – and disappeared outside. Sam followed. The air was cold out here.

"The weapons training? The melting silver into bullets?" He stayed just a step behind Dean, up a short set of concrete stairs, and they were in a dark alleyway now, as spooky as one would expect on Halloween night. Sam had seen worse, he hardly noticed. "Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors."

"So what're you gonna do? You just gonna live some normal, apple-pie life?" Dean stopped beside a lone car in the alley, a scowl on his face. "Is that it?"

"No. Not _normal_. Safe."

"That why you ran away?"

This was a new voice. Only it wasn't new, not really. Sam's chest constricted. He reevaluated his surroundings and discovered he had missed a couple of major details.

For one thing, the car parked here was not some anonymous vehicle. He now recognized the smooth outline of a'67 Chevy Impala. _The _Impala. The car he had been raised in.

But, even more importantly, there was a figure moving around the car, a figure with crossed arms and a tilted head. Oh, God. She had changed. He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Hey, Jocelyn. I almost didn't recognize you."

"Lotta changes between twelve and sixteen."

She was taller. She had lost most of her baby fat. Her hair was longer, curling at the end – she looked more like a woman than a girl, cute had turned pretty – but that too-civil tone of voice, just uncontrolled enough to hint at her true feelings, and this look she was giving him, with her chin up, her lips pressed too tightly together . . . that might as well have been straight from his memory. It was almost comforting.

He'd been stupid, to not have expected her from the moment he saw Dean.

"I didn't run away, you know," he finally said. "I was just going to college. It was _Dad_ who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone . . . and that's what I'm doing."

Jocelyn sighed. Dean jumped in. "Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now – if he's not dead already – I can _feel_ it."

"Me, too," said Jocelyn.

"Look," said Dean. "Joss and I . . . we can't do this alone."

Sam shook his head. "Yes, you can."

Dean looked at Jocelyn, who stayed still and silent. "Yeah . . ." he admitted. "Well, we don't want to."

She ducked her head.

Sam didn't know what to say. Dean cleared his throat, Jocelyn kept staring at the ground.

Finally Sam asked what John had been hunting.

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

_8:00 a.m., Nov 1_

_Dean went to get Sam from the dorm and I waited in an alley. I wanted a cigarette. It's been nearly three months since I last had one, but damn, I wanted one. I kept thinking I heard sounds in the alley, kind of hoped for it, really. Dealing with a spirit, a monster, a rabid Saint Bernard, whatever – it would have easier. _

_D came out with S after a few minutes. S hasn't changed much at all. When I saw him, all I could think about was the night he left. I wanted to hug him, I wanted to hit him, I wanted to cry and scream and stomp my feet and finally, finally ask him how he could have left, how he could have left without telling me goodbye. I wanted to tell him I had missed him, I wanted to ask if he had missed me, I wanted to tell him to go to hell. _

_Instead, I froze up behind D like a four-year-old hiding from a stranger. _

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

"Where the hell did I put that thing?" Dean's eyes scoured the trunk of the car, filled to the brim with deadly weapons he had no use for at the moment. He needed something much more mundane. Jocelyn stooped beside him and Sam leaned against the car.

"So when Dad left, why didn't you two go with him?"

"We were working a gig . . ." Dean shoved a bag of salt to the side, moved over a machete. "This voodoo thing down in New Orleans . . . Didn't I give it to you?"

"Nope." Jocelyn squinted, reached forward.

"Dad let you guys go on a hunting trip alone?"

"I'm twenty-six, dude."

Jocelyn stood up straight, yanking something from the depths of the trunk. "And I can handle myself pretty well," she said as she handed a manila folder to Dean, who opened it immediately.

"Here we go . . . So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. A month ago – this guy." He handed Sam an article. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA."

"So maybe he was kidnapped."

"He's not the first, though." Jocelyn turned her back to the open trunk, propped one of her boots against the car. "There was one back in April, one back in '04 . . ." She gave Dean a nod and he took over, throwing down article after article.

"'03, '98, '92 . . . Ten of them over the past twenty years. All men."

"All the same five-mile stretch of road," finished Jocelyn. "John went to dig around when it started happening more often."

Dean dropped the now-empty folder on top of the stack of articles and dug into his pocket for his cell. "That was about three weeks ago. We haven't heard from him since, which is bad enough. And then I get this voicemail yesterday. . ." He played it.

"_Dean . . . something big is starting to happen . . . I need to try and figure out what's going on . . . It may . . . Be very careful, Dean. Keep Jocelyn close. We're all in danger."_

"You know, there's EVP on that," Sam said the moment the message cut off.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Not bad, Sammy. Kind of like ridin' a bike, isn't it?"

Jocelyn tapped her fingers against her arms. Rapidly.

"Okay, I slowed the message down," Dean said, "Ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what we got."

Another click of a button, and the subsequent whisper spread through the air like fog: _"I can never go home."_

"Never go home," Sam repeated.

Dean nudged Jocelyn away from the Impala and slammed the trunk closed. She fell back into her previous position, he settled in beside her and looked at his brother. His kid brother. His kid brother he could only hope he still knew, even only a little, after all this time. "You know, in two years, I've never bothered you, I've never asked you for a thing."

Sam looked at both of them, looked away, looked at both of them again, ended on Dean.

"Alright. I'll go. I'll help you find him."

Dean nodded, his expression neutral.

"But I need to be back first thing Monday. Just wait here."

Dean couldn't resist. "What's first thing Monday?"

"I have this . . . I have an interview."

"What, a job interview? Skip it."

"It's a _law school _interview, and it's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school," Dean echoed. Jocelyn made a huffing noise. Sam either ignored or didn't hear her.

"So we got a deal or not?" he asked Dean.

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

_8:00 a.m., Nov 1 (cont.)_

_We briefed Sam on the situation. We played him the voicemail, he caught the EVP. Kind of like riding a bike, Dean said. So maybe S remembers a thing or two. I don't know. Not sure I buy it. _

_But he's coming with us. He agreed to help us look for John, but he has to be back by Monday. He has an interview for law school. S wants to be a lawyer. He wants a safe life. Without hunting. Without us._

_He didn't miss me. He barely seems to have missed his own brother or father. Who needs to be __convinced__ to look for his own dad, a dad like John? Of course he didn't miss me. Screw me for missing him, for ever missing him._

_. . . . . _

. . . . .

. . . . .

Dean dug an elbow into Jocelyn's shoulder as soon as Sam was gone. "You mind stopping the ice princess routine, Bette Davis?"

"I was never the princess type. I used to dress up as a pirate for Halloween. And _sometimes_ I kill monsters. I don't think Cinderella was into that."

"He agreed to come with us, Joss."

She kept her attention on a plastic jack-o-lantern hanging by its wires from a nearby fire escape. She said nothing.

"That's a good thing. You told me you didn't wanna come get him because you didn't think he would wanna come with us."

"He left us once, Dean. He's going to do it again – first thing Monday."

He stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the dead plastic pumpkin. She tilted her head back to make sure he saw her very impatient expression, but his face suggested this bothered him only minimally, and his voice lowered. Damn. "Look, keeping him with us is not the important thing right now. The important thing right now is finding my dad, so if you're gonna be pissed at Sam, fine, but don't let it interfere with your focus."

"You're so cute when you try to sound like John."

He looked beyond her. "That's it. I'm dropping you off at the pound."

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

_8:00 a.m., Nov 1 (cont.)_

_Sam couldn't believe it when he saw my motorcycle. Made me laugh. I doubt Dean will tell him the story behind it, so let's just hope S thinks I'm that much more of a badass. Definitely couldn't hurt._

_We headed for Jericho.  
_


	3. Constance Welch

**(From the private journal of Jocelyn Murphy)**

_8:00 a.m., Nov 1_

_When Sam left, I had the nightmares again. I thought they were over – hadn't had one since a month or two after Dad handed me off to the Winchesters. But after S ran away, they started happening again. Bad. After a 2 year absence, boom, there they were, vivid as ever. Don't know how what happened with T has anything to do with what happened with S, but on top of everything, on top of the leaving and the not calling, Sam gave me the nightmares again. So damn it – I think I've earned the right to be pissed at him._

_. . . . . _

. . . . .

. . . . .

Sam was sitting in the Impala.

Actually, he was sitting in the Impala, at a truck stop, on the way to investigate a potentially haunted highway. And if he closed his eyes, he could be sixteen again.

But he didn't want to be sixteen. No, he liked twenty-two. He wanted to go back to Stanford and be twenty-two, be pre-law, be with Jess. That was his life. That was where he belonged. And he _would_ go back . . . right after this. This one last hunt. He had to make sure his dad was okay, he knew he had to. But this was it. Once they found John, it was over, and _over _would stick next time around.

He had Dean's box of cassette tapes in his lap, trying to find something, _anything_ he hadn't heard a thousand times as a kid, when a shadow fell over him. "Dean wants to know if you want breakfast." Jocelyn wiggled a tiny Styrofoam coffee cup and a granola bar at him.

"No, I'm good." He nodded at the food. "How'd you pay for that stuff? You guys still running credit card scams?"

"Well, if you'll remember, hunting doesn't really keep a person in shoes." She leaned against the car, taking a long swig of coffee and staring out at the road. "And anyway, we just apply. They'rethe ones who send us the cards."

Sam picked up a Led Zeppelin tape, dropped it back into the box. "Yeah? And what _names _did you write on the application this time?"

A smile tugged at her lips, but dropped them just as quickly. "Bert Afranian. And his children Bernice and Hector. Got three cards out of the deal."

"Sounds about right." Sam realized, as Jocelyn opened her granola bar with a bite, that the gap she'd had between her two front teeth had grown together. "So . . . what exactly are you doing for education?"

"Hm?"

"I mean, shouldn't you be in school right now?"

"Oh. Yeah." She chewed, swallowed. "After you . . . after you left, it seemed pointless to hang around a town long enough for just one of us to enroll in school. Especially with the power of the Internet. I do this distance-learning thing now. Send stuff in once a week, get new assignments through email. Not a prep school education, but it'll get me my diploma."

"Oh, wow. Cool."

She sipped more coffee. Sam's eyes slipped over to her motorcycle, sitting by the next pump over, looking like absolutely nothing a sixteen-year-old girl should have. "Wanna tell me how you conned my dad into letting you get the bike?"

"Wasn't much con involved . . . It belonged to – someone. He gave it to me. Sort of."

"Anyone I know?"

"No."

Sam didn't press her. "Still can't believe Dad let you keep it."

She shrugged, offered nothing more, and Sam gave up completely. She didn't want to small talk, fine. God only knew what she would do if he tried to bring up something significant.

She was being unfair.

Or, maybe she was just being a teenager. Maybe it had nothing to do with Sam. That was at least a possibility.

He heard Dean say, "He want anything?" and turned to see his brother taking the pump from the Impala's back end. Jocelyn answered no and tilted her head back and drained her last drops of coffee.

Dean came around to the car's driver's side and slid in, storing his junk food in between him and Sam, who closed his own door. The box's contents clattered around. "I swear, man," Sam said, "You _gotta _update your cassette tape collection."

"Why?"

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And, two –" He began picking tapes at random. "Black Sabbath . . . Motorhead . . . Metallica –"

Dean snagged a tape from the box, evidently unmoved. "Say what you want, I can take it. Oh, but if you let Joss hear you badmouth Black Sabbath, she'll make your life a living hell."

"Jocelyn likes this stuff?"

"Jocelyn loves this stuff."

Really, Sam shouldn't have been surprised. Even as kid, it was Dean who Jocelyn had looked up to, Dean she'd watched with a nearly religious reverence, Dean she'd tried to emulate in every single way she could. But still – Black Sabbath? "She's a sixteen-year-old girl. She should be listening to the Jonas Brothers –"

" – who? –"

"– not the greatest hits of mullet rock."

The roar of a motorcycle rolled through the open windows. Jocelyn rode up beside them, eyes hidden by her helmet's visor, but her head was twisted their way. Dean held up a finger and fed the tape to the car. "House rules, Sammy," he said. "Driver picks the music. Shotgun shuts his cakehole."

"You know," Sam said, because this was a good a time as any, "'Sammy' is a chubby twelve-year-old. It's _Sam –"_

The car came to life, AC/DC's "Back in Black" started pounding out of the speakers, andDean's hand flew to the volume knob. "What's that?" he called as he cranked it up. "Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud . . ."

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

_6:15 a.m., Nov 2_

_So, yesterday._

_We got to Jericho, reached the five-mile stretch John disappeared on. Centennial Highway. Ran into a crime scene. An empty car, a missing guy. Fits the MO. I rode past – God, I wish I could get rid of that bike – while the guys played feds. Yeah – Sam played a fed. _

_Anyway, D and S heard a cop mention that his daughter – the girlfriend of the victim, Troy – was putting up missing posters downtown. After they met back up with me, we tracked down the girl, Amy (as Troy's cousins from Modesto) and ended up having coffee with her and a friend in a nearby café. That's where we learned about this local legend – as the story goes, a girl was murdered on Centennial and now gets her kicks hitchhiking and killing off the poor saps who stop to pick her up. We went to the local library to see if the story checked out. It did._

_. . . . ._

_. . . . ._

_. . . . ._

"Female Murder Hitchhiking" was the first thing Dean typed into the Search field of the _Jericho Herald _website, but the computer's reply was a polite (_0) Result for . . _. line. He changed "Hitchhiking" to "Centennial Highway", clicked _GO _again_. (0) Result for . . ._

Sam tried to be patient, he really did. He sat watching from the chair next to Dean, he intended to let him keep trying, but somehow his hands flew out anyway. "Let me try –"

"I got it!" Dean batted his hand away, so Sam took hold of his brother's rolling chair and shoved, sending Dean sliding. Jocelyn – who had been supporting herself on Dean's shoulders – caught her balance and gave Sam a dirty look. He moved between her and the computer.

"Dude!" Dean pushed himself back over. "You're such a control freak. . ."

Sam rested his hands on the keyboard and studied the screen for a moment. Just as he typed the first letters, Jocelyn crossed her arms over his shoulders, rested on him, and he had a sudden flash of himself in the backseat of the Impala, a sleeping little girl curled up beside him like a cat . . .

He flexed his fingers and continued typing.

First, he changed "Female" to "Woman."

Nothing.

He deleted "Highway."

Nothing.

"Gee, Sam, glad we got you on the job," said Dean.

Sam bit his tongue and replaced "Murder" with "Killed".

Nothing. _0 Results for . . . _glared back at the trio like a taunt, and Sam felt Jocelyn shift. "Angry spirits are born from a violent death, right?"

"Very good, Jocelyn," he muttered.

Her arms stretched out on either side of him and her hands nudged his off the keyboard. "Well, smartass . . ." She backspaced over "Killed." "A violent death doesn't always equal murder, does it?" S-U-I-C-I-D-E, she poked into the computer. _GO._

_Searching . . ._

_(1) Result found: __Suicide on Centennial_

Dean cuffed Sam's arm and jerked his thumb towards Jocelyn. "And she never even went to college."

"You can click on the link if you'd like, Sam." Jocelyn withdrew her arms.

The blue light from the monitor bounced off of the grin Dean sent Jocelyn's way. Sam resisted the urge to tell them both off. _Monday, _he said to himself. _Just until Monday. _He clicked on the link, and an article topped by a picture of a pretty young woman appeared. "This was 1981 . . ." He moved closer to the screen to read. ". . . Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river."

"Never understood jumping off bridges," said Jocelyn.

"Say why she did it?" Dean asked.

"Yeah . . ."

"What?"

"An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Her two little kids are in the bathtub, she leaves them alone for a minute, when she comes back . . . they aren't breathing. Both die."

"Hm."

"Look at that," Jocelyn pointed to a snapshot of a man, his head bowed, hand covering his mouth. "'Our babies were gone," she read, "and Constance just couldn't bear it', said Joseph Welch. The husband."

"Hey, guys." Now Dean pointed, but lower, at the final picture in the article. "That bridge look familiar to you?"

Sam looked closer. It did. They had been on it earlier than day, posing as feds.


	4. The Sylvania Bridge

The Sylvania Bridge didn't have much of a view. Even in the darkness, the water below looked hopelessly murky, and the smell floating up from it . . . far less than lovely. The structure itself was old and creaky, the kind of bridge that made people want to hold their breath as they crossed, and overall, Jocelyn thought that Constance had picked a fine place to start off her horror story. _It's not as creepy as the nursing home back in Tampa, though. Oh, God . . . that damn beagle . . ._

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive," Dean said, yanking Jocelyn to the present. He was standing to her left, Sam was to her right, and they were all leaning over a piece of railing near the center of the bridge.

"So you think Dad might've been here?" Sam asked.

"Well, he's chasin' the same story, and we're chasin' him." Dean began to walk down the bridge, not appearing to be heading anywhere in particular – the Impala and the motorcycle were parked in the opposite direction. Sam followed him, and after a final glance down at the sad water, so did Jocelyn.

"So now what?" she picked up the pace to catch up to Sam, then Dean.

"You know what. We keep diggin' until we find him."

"Might take a while."

"So?"

Jocelyn shook her head. "I mean, I know that doesn't matter. It's John. We'll look for him for as long as it takes. But Sam –"

"– I have to be back by Monday," the college student finished for her.

Dean stopped at that. "Right." He faced his brother. "The interview."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I forgot . . ."

Jocelyn doubted that. She disliked the way Dean was eyeing Sam. "You're really serious about this, aren't you?" he eventually said. "You think you're just gonna become some lawyer? Marry a girl?"

"Maybe. Why not?"

Jocelyn cleared her throat. Sam had adopted a tone. A tone that brought back many, many faded memories, a tone he'd always adopted before an argument. Or a flat-out fight.

If Dean noticed this – and he had to – he didn't acknowledge it. "Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know the things you've done?"

"No," Sam said. "And she's not ever going to know."

Jocelyn edged a tiny bit forward, into the space between the two brothers.

"Well, that's healthy."

"Dean," Joss said.

"What, Joss?" His hand waved toward Sam. "He can pretend all he wants. But Sammy . . . sooner or later, you're gonna have to face up to who you really are." Again, he spun away. And again, Sam followed. Jocelyn chomped mercilessly down on her lip as he passed in front of her.

"And who's that?" Sam demanded.

"One of us!"

Jocelyn looked mournfully at the Impala, imagining diving into the driver's seat and tearing away, leaving the boys stranded, forced to work out their problems far behind her. She hurried after Sam and Dean.

"No!" Sam had moved in front of Dean, made him stop. "I'm _not _like you! Either of you!"

That took Jocelyn by surprise. She had assumed this was a brother thing.

"This is _not _going to be my life!"

Oh. So it was a hunter thing.

"You have a responsibility –"

"To Dad?" Sam said. "And his crusade?"

No, no, it was a _Winchester_ thing. Which may or may not have made it Jocelyn's problem, depending on who she asked. For now, she continued digging into her lip and pretending she actually gave a damn about how pretty the stars were tonight.

"If it weren't for pictures," Sam said, suddenly soft, "I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. Jocelyn, neither would you. Hell, she's wasn't even your –"

"Don't," she snapped_. _She realized too late that Sam had been trying to join forces, not insult her, but by then her stance was made. She glared at him and said, "I'm not backing you here."

He huffed out a breath, looking a little shocked, and Jocelyn wondered how he'd truly expected her to side with him.

Why were they taking sides anyway . . . ?

"What difference would it make?" Sam said, finally returning his attention to Dean. "Even if we do find the thing that killed her . . . Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."

Dean moved fast. Jocelyn's reflexes were pretty good, but by the time she recognized what was happening, Dean had already slammed Sam against one of the trusses jutting up from the bridge. She jumped towards them and barked Dean's name. But she did nothing else. What else could she do?

Dean was in a different world, anyway, one populated only by the Winchester brothers. Jocelyn could tell he was working to control his temper, and – Jesus, what if he threw a punch?

Dean's face was very close to Sam's when he whispered, "Don't talk about her like that." Then he let him go.

Jocelyn exhaled. Muscles relaxed. Dean stepped away, fingers twitching, and Jocelyn ended up locking eyes with Sam. Was she mad at him? Not really. But she sure as hell was siding with Dean, if it came down to it. And she let her gaze go to the older brother to make sure Sam had no doubts about that.

There was a silence, as awkward as could be expected. Jocelyn tasted blood in her mouth. She licked her tongue over her lip and pressed her teeth together.

"Guys," Dean said soon enough, and Jocelyn tensed all over again, because his voice wasn't good. And he had gone much too still. She came up beside him, slowly, and soon saw what had captured his attention.

There was a woman in a white dress on the bridge, standing on the railing, too close for comfort . . . close enough for Jocelyn to see that she was beautiful. And, notably, that she was Constance Welch.

She stared at them. Jocelyn looked into her eyes. Felt ice in her stomach and then all through her body.

The spirit leaned forward and fell.

Jocelyn, Sam, and Dean took off to where she had been standing, because they were hunters and had a bad habit of running _to_ the supernatural instead of away from it. They hit and stooped over the rail . . . searched the water below . . . nothing.

"Where'd she go?" Dean.

"I don't know." Sam.

A high-pitched roaring sound. The Impala.

Jocelyn whirled towards the car and was nearly blinded by its headlights. She raised an arm to shield her eyes, even as she stepped around Dean and Sam to get a better look. "What the . . ."

"Who's driving your car?" Sam asked Dean, and although Jocelyn figured he already had a pretty good guess, his older brother left little room for any opposing theories when he pulled the keys from his pocket, jangled them for emphasis.

The next instant, the Impala's tires squealed, and then a couple tons of pure muscle car was hurtling towards them.

Jocelyn stumbled back. Dean's hand, pulling roughly at her shoulder. Sam's voice. "Go! _Go!"_

She ran. They all did.

Jocelyn was in very good shape. She made it a point to work out whenever she could – when she found herself in a motel room with some spare time, early mornings after a good night's sleep. And one of her favorite forms of exercise happened to be running.

But, at the end of the day, she was a sixteen-year-old girl, and she couldn't keep up with Sam and Dean for long. And she definitely could not outrun a car. So, after a few seconds of bolting down the bridge, she made a decision and peeled away from the boys. She aimed for one of the trusses and leaped. Her arms wrapped around that truss, and she spun, lost her footing, for a brief second felt nothing but air under her feet, and then was standing solidly on the metal below her. She gasped and squeezed her eyes shut as the Impala rushed by her, blowing back her hair. She leaned forward then, watching it go, and saw the shadows that were Sam and Dean leaping off of the bridge just in front of the car. She swore and leaned the other way, still hugging the railing, and watched as a sole figure fell into the river below.

The Impala halted ahead, tires whining as it did. The engine shut off, taking the headlights with it, and the night was again dark and still, except for Jocelyn's panting. And then, after a moment, her voice. "Dean!" she shouted with a tremble. Her whole body was shaking, flooded with adrenaline. And fear. "_Sam_! _Dean!"_

She dropped down from the railing, shaky, just as someone called, "Jocelyn, you okay?"

"Sam!"

She ran down the road in time to see him, a mere shape in the dark, clambering up from the side of the bridge. "Sam . . ." She leaned over, saw that he had caught himself on one of the beams supporting the bridge, and almost laughed as he pulled himself up beside her. Then she realized that Dean was unaccounted for. "Oh, God," she whispered as she and Sam both turned to the river. "Dean!"

"What?" came the ready-to-kill reply.

. . . . .

The man at the motel front desk was kind enough not to ask questions when a gunk-covered Dean strolled in, slapped down a credit card, and requested, with an impressive amount of nonchalance, "Two rooms, please."

The old guy picked up the card and studied it. After a moment he said, in a voice as gruff as his lined face forewarned, "You guys havin' a reunion or somethin'?"

Jocelyn sprang to attention. So did Sam and Dean. The former asked the man what he meant.

"That other guy, Bert Afranian. He came in and bought out a room for the whole month."

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

**(From the private journal of Jocelyn Murphy)**

_6:15 a.m., Nov 2_

_A few hours ago, a ghost forced Dean to jump off Sylvania Bridge into the river below, but he survived, and had to drive to a motel while coated with God-knows-what. He didn't have his happy face on. Really must start carrying camera._

_After that, we called it a night and headed to the nearest motel. D used Hector Afranian's credit card. The man at the front desk looked at the name and told us that a Bert Afranian had already checked in. John. We forgot about getting our rooms. The guy told us Bert's was #10. We headed over, knocked just in case, got no answer, and picked the lock. Inside, the room looked like I would expect J's motel room to look like after a few weeks – papers and pictures covered the walls, the bed was unmade and covered in clothes, half-eaten food was everywhere, as was typical warding stuff – salt, cat's eyes, the works. J thought something was after him, which means something probably was. Maybe still is._

_S found the article. The same article from the library, hanging here on J's wall. He figured it out, the whole thing: Welch is a Woman in White._

_Our next move? Talk to Welch's husband, if he's still alive. D thinks that's what J would have done. D's taking a shower and then we go. _

_D and S got into a fight on the bridge. S dissed hunting, dissed J, said he couldn't even remember M and then expected me to join in with him because I never met her. And she's not my mother. S said catching the thing that killed M wouldn't matter because M is never coming back. D shoved him against the bridge, but let him go. A minute ago, they made up. Sort of. S started to apologize, D said "No chick flick moments," Sam called him a jerk, Dean called him a bitch. I asked S if he and D wanted to be left alone. He threw a shoe at me._

_God help me, I like him being here. _


	5. 5-0

Dean had never appreciated a shower so much, and he damn well took his time.

When he finally did emerge from the bathroom, hair still damp and clothes wonderfully, blissfully clean, the sun had risen to pour a warm glaze across the dirty motel room, making it seem almost homey. Almost. Sam was sitting on the bed. "Hey, man," Dean said. "I'm gonna –"

"Shh." Sam nodded to the corner of the room. Jocelyn had fallen asleep in the armchair, squeezing her five-foot-four frame into the tight, balled-up position that she had always found so comfortable, though Dean couldn't for the life of him figure out how. Her journal was in her lap, safely tucked between her hands.

Dean shook his head. "I swear, the kid can sleep anywhere but in a bed." He spotted his dad's old leather jacket, slung over a bookshelf. He reached for it and pulled it on, inhaling the familiar smell. A wave of the closest thing he knew to homesickness came over him, and he cleared his throat.

"Hey, what's with that journal?" Sam asked, distracting him, thankfully. He was still whispering. "She didn't used to have it, did she?"

"Nah . . ." Dean slipped his hands into the jacket's pockets – God, he loved this jacket. "The last time we went to see Pastor Jim – I don't know, musta been about a year-and-a-half ago – he had her go see her old therapist."

"Why? Were the nightmares back?"

Dean checked to make sure Jocelyn's eyes were still closed. No, the nightmares hadn't been back – not then, anyway. After Sam's grand exit, however, Jocelyn's bad dreams had returned and come steadily, like freaking clockwork, for about three or four weeks. Then off and on for another month or two. After that, though, she had gone back to normal. Sam wasn't asking about that point in time, though, so Dean decided he could get away with not mentioning it. "No, that was the thing, she was fine. And she didn't wanna go, but Pastor Jim was pretty pushy about it. Dad thinks he wanted to feel like he was doing something for her."

"Bet she loved that."

"Yeah, she was a doll about the whole ordeal. But she went. Saw the old guy, Dr . . . Blake? One quick session, but when she came out, she wanted a journal. Started writing in it every day, had to get a new one at the start of this year. Must help keep her sane."

"What does she write about?"

"This morning I speculated about what shoes I should wear to prom."

Jocelyn hadn't moved, but her eyes were halfway open, and they lingered on Dean. He wondered how much she had heard. Her dad was a sensitive topic. But all she said, as she stretched her arms and legs over the arm rests, was, "You're wearing my jacket."

Dean popped the collar. "You get this jacket the day I die."

"Don't tempt me." Her frame collapsed over the chair, legs dangling off the edge. "Where're you going?"

"Gonna grab a little somethin' to eat at that diner down the street. Either of you want anything?"

"Nah," Sam said.

"Afranian's buyin'."

Sam shook his head and pressed his phone to his ear, ending the conversation. Probably trying to call his girlfriend. Dean turned to Jocelyn. She cracked her neck. "If they have raspberry muffins and you get me one, I may just love you forever. And I'd like some –"

"Coffee, yeah." Dean headed for the door. "Go back to sleep."

"Don't get lost."

It was a warm day, and Dean felt himself relax, almost involuntarily, as he stepped into the sunlight. And why shouldn't he ease up a little? Fine, his dad was still missing, but they were closer to finding him than they had been yesterday. A lot closer. And at least Sam wasn't –

_Damn_.

His peripheral vision caught the police car too late – he was already in the middle of the parking lot, a deer in the headlights. He froze just like one, too. A couple of cops . . . the same ones from the bridge? Yeah. And they were talking to the motel man who had given Bert Afranian's room number to Dean. This man did not look happy.

Oh, this was not good.

The motel man looked to his left, saw Dean, and raised his arm to point, grimacing.

Oh, this was _really_ not good.

The cops started over. Dean turned his back to them and reached for his cell phone.

. . . . .

"There's a coffee machine right over there," Sam said.

Jocelyn had just begun rereading the Constance Welch article. She glanced over her shoulder when Sam spoke, then looked at the table, which did, in fact, offer a coffee machine. "I don't make coffee."

Sam raised his eyebrows, bouncing his phone in his hand. "You don't know how to make coffee?"

"I know _how_ to. I'm just . . . not good at it."

Sam stared at her incredulously before beginning to laugh. "How can a person be _bad_ at making coffee? There are like, three steps in the entire process."

"I don't have to justify myself to you." She chose not to be offended, because Sam's laugh was good to hear. She nodded at his phone as she returned to her armchair. "Checking up on college life?"

"Ah, just listening to voicemails."

"From who?"

"My girlfriend."

"You have a girlfriend?"

"Yeah. Jessica. She's –"

A high-pitched ring, blaring from the pocket of Jocelyn's jeans, cut Sam off. Jocelyn showed him a _one sec_ finger and pulled her cell out. DEAN, said the screen. She flipped the phone open. "Yeah?"

"Joss, 5-0. Take off."

Six years with John Winchester had programmed quick reflexes into Jocelyn's mainframe, which was why she was yanking on Sam's shoulder within a second. "5-0, Sam."

He leapt to his feet as fast as she had. Jocelyn crossed the room and locked the door. "Dean, what about you?" She found the Impala's keys on the table, right by the damn coffee maker.

"Uh, they kinda spotted me."

She tightened her grip on the keys, felt the metal dig into her palm. "Dean –"

"Go find Dad." A click. Silence.

Sam was at the window, pulling the curtain back. "One's coming," he said, and then they were both in the bathroom, hauling ass out the window.

. . . . .

The Impala was Jocelyn's happy place.

As a kid, a good night was a night after a hunt, when the trouble had been taken care of and she and the Winchesters were, sometimes literally, driving off into the sunset. She could lean her head against the cool window and wrap up in whatever jacket was closest, dozing on and off to the sounds of steel guitar and a revving engine – an untraditional lullaby, but one she grew to love. In more recent years, since John had gotten his truck and handed the Impala over to Dean, Jocelyn claimed the front seat and put down roots there. It's where she had researched cases, and lore, where she wrote in her journal, did her homework, cranked up _War Pigs _and sang it as loud as she could when sleep deprivation brought out her sillier side. Dean had taught her to drive in the Impala. Jocelyn loved to drive it. Even now that she had her motorcycle, any time she could ride in the car, let alone drive it, she was there.

But she was driving it now. And it didn't feel like her happy place. For one thing, Dean was in police custody. For another, Sam was not. No, he was with Jocelyn, and he was upset. So much so that he wouldn't give her Joseph Welch's address. Which really, _really_ pissed her off.

"Jocelyn," Sam was saying now, earnestly, and she pressed harder on the gas pedal. "We have to go to the jail."

"Okay, Sam," she said, keeping her eyes on the road. "And do what?"

"I don't know, but we have to figure something out! We can't just leave Dean there!"

_You think I don't want to go back? You think I like this at all? _Jocelyn desperately wanted to play some music. She needed comfort music. But she doubted Sam would like that. "Dean told us to find John. Which means we gotta go talk to Welch."

"I don't care what Dean said, Jocelyn!"

Her knuckles were white. The speedometer's needle was edging on seventy, and she felt and heard the back end of the car slide as she took a sharp left. A passing car honked.

Sam sighed and ran both of his hands through his hair. "Will you please slow down?"

She cast him a sideways glance that she sincerely hoped hurt him. Dean had been driving like this all weekend, and Sam had yet to ask him to ease up. "I'm not slowing down. I'm not turning back. Dean can handle the cops. You and I need to continue the mission."

"'Continue the –'" He stared at her, Jocelyn felt it. "Wow," he said before long, his voice low. "Dad sure got to you, huh? You turned out just like Dean."

He wanted her to slow down? Fine. Her boot transferred to the brake. She was suddenly going fifty, then thirty, and the tires were complaining at the sudden change, and then she had steered the Impala off the side of the road and the tires fell quiet.

Sam shifted. "What are you –"

She put the car in park and faced him. "Turned out just like Dean, huh?" She was yelling. She didn't remember deciding to yell. "Well, let me ask you something, Sam – whose fault do you think that is?"

His mouth tried to move but she interrupted him.

"You know what? Screw it." She turned away, breathing hard, still clinging to the steering wheel. "I'm not fishing for a half-assed apology."

"Oh, what, you think I'm going to give you one?" he snapped, surprising her. Infuriating her. "I didn't do anything wrong, Jocelyn!"

She slammed her palm against the steering wheel. "I had nightmares, Sam!"

Silence.

"You _left_," she spat, hating herself but not able to stop, "and I had nightmares. For _months_." She stared forward. Swallow, swallow. _No tears. Not now._

Cars passed. Silence drowned them both. Jocelyn had the urge to burst from the car and run.

Eventually, Sam asked, quietly, "_The _nightmares?"

. . . . .

"_Joss, wake up. Jocelyn!"_

"_Dean . . ."_

"_Shh, come here, kiddo."_

_. . . . ._

Jocelyn sighed. Swallowed again. "Yeah. I don't know why. But . . . yeah, Teddy. What I . . ."

. . . . .

"_I – I killed –"_

"_It's wasn't you, Joss." _

"_Dean, I was _tearing_ –"_

"_Jocelyn. It wasn't you. You know that. And the bitch that did do it? Where's she, huh? In hell."_

. . . . .

"Jocelyn," Sam murmured after a while. "I'm sorry."

One tear escaped Jocelyn. She swiped it away. Her thumb came down bearing a smudge. God, that mascara had to be two days old.

"I'm really, really sorry . . . But all I did was go to college."

Jocelyn nodded at her smudged thumb, then at the road.

"If I'd known –"

"Okay, Sam, please." Jocelyn's body tried to sob. She forced it into a chuckle. "I shouldn't have said anything, I don't –" She coughed, then took a breath, let it out, and said, "Listen, I'll make you a deal."

_I'll make you a deal. _Dean had bargained with her like that all the time when she was younger. _I'll make you a deal, Joss. You don't ask Dad about Sam for a while, and I'll take you on my next solo hunt. Yeah, I'll let you drive some. Don't tell my dad. _

"We go talk to Welch," Jocelyn said. "We find out where Constance is buried. If she's close, we go scorch her. If she's not, and by sundown we still haven't heard from Dean, we peel over there and see what we can do." She was nodding again by the time she finished, and she made herself look over at Sam, widening her eyes to discredit how red they must be.

Sam exhaled. She had made him feel guilty, that was obvious. Which made her feel guilty. It truly hadn't been her intention to get to him, not like that. She didn't even want him to know about the bad dreams.

But, hell. Whatever got him to go with her to Welch's.

He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. "Let's go."


	6. Family

It was a long drive to Joseph Welch's, and Sam spent the whole time trying not to remember the way Jocelyn would scream upon waking from a nightmare. The kid had seen plenty of horrifying things during her waking hours, but Sam only ever heard her cry out with true and utter terror when she was sleeping or just coming out of it.

And he had brought that back to her?

He knew he hadn't done anything wrong. But he felt guilty anyway, guilty enough that he didn't say anything when she started playing a Metallica cassette. He didn't say anything for the entire car ride. Neither did she. They were both silent until the moment she finally pulled the Impala up to Joseph Welch's place.

Welch lived in what Sam could only describe as a junkyard. All manner of beaten down, broken automobiles surrounded a house that looked close to collapse. Jocelyn parked the car and sighed. "Okay. My guess is that John would have told Welch he's a reporter."

Sam nodded at her, though she wasn't looking. "Alright. I'll say he and I are doing a story together."

"I'm coming with you."

"I think I can handle it."

"Oh, I have the utmost faith in you." She unbuckled her seatbelt.

"You don't look old enough to be a reporter."

She reached over to open the glove department. After a few seconds of rummaging, she pulled out a small, thick-framed pair of glasses and wagged them in his face. "Instant agers," she said, unfolding the spectacles and pushing them onto her nose. "Don't do a damn thing for my eyesight, but they add a couple of years in a pinch."

Sam still didn't think she could pass for much older than eighteen, and his expression must have said so, because Jocelyn said, "You think Welch'll really pay that much attention to how old I look? Come on." She hoisted herself out of the car, and with a closed-mouth sigh, Sam followed.

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

**(From the private journal of Jocelyn Murphy)**

_11:30 p.m., Nov 2_

_Long day. _

_After D got out of the shower this morning, he went to get something to eat. Called me about thirty seconds after he left. 5-0, he said. He told me to find J and hung up. S and I bolted out the bathroom window. We got to the Impala and drove to nowhere while I tried to convince S to give me the address he found for Welch. He wouldn't. He wanted to go back and try to get D. He didn't understand that that isn't how things work these days. And he was talking to me like I was an idiot. Hey Sam – __I'M NOT TWELVE ANYMORE!_

_We ended up pulling over and hashing it out. Somehow I ended up telling him that my nightmares had come back when he left. I didn't want to tell him that. But D had been arrested, we had to go talk to Welch, I had a godawful headache from caffeine withdrawal, and I just wanted him to SHUT UP and do the freaking job._

_He got this injured puppy dog look. But he gave me the address and I drove us to Welch's. Few hours' drive. Guy must have wanted to get out of Jericho._

_Neither of us said anything the whole way. I finally put in Metallica to fill the silence. He didn't say anything about it. _

_When we got to Welch's – a junkyard – I got on those stupid fake glasses to try and make myself look older. John would have said he was a reporter, so that's what S and I decided on, reporters collaborating with J. We knocked on Joseph Welch's door and introduced ourselves. He's a sad, nervous old man. We walked and talked with the guy. S showed him a picture he must have taken from the hotel – it's that one with John and the boys when the boys were little, sitting on the hood of the Impala, the one J always carries around. Mr. Welch said yeah, John was the reporter who came by four days ago. We're so FREAKING CLOSE._

_Welch was uncomfortable. Can't blame him. But he told us Constance is buried behind their old house – the guy moved out after his family died – on Breckenridge. That was all I really needed to know, but S, I guess he had to be thorough. Asked Welch if he'd ever married again. No, Constance was the love of his life. Happy marriage? Oh, yes._

_Tell that to the missing men._

_S told Welch about the Woman in White legend. Gotta admit, it sounds crazy when you listen to it like a non-hunter. But Welch got too pissed for it not to have hit a nerve. That bastard slept around on his wife, no doubt in hell. _

_He kicked us off his property. Fine by me. We had bones to burn. Except I didn't._

_. . . . ._

_. . . . ._

_. . . . ._

Jocelyn let Sam drive on the way back. She didn't say why, just tossed him the keys and told him to go crazy. He hadn't protested.

"Okay," she said once they were on the road. "So, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that our Woman in White theory is stone-cold proven."

"Yeah, I think so. Which means our next stop is that old house."

"Exactly." She drew her right knee up to her chest and fiddled with her jean leg. "But if Welch told John where Constance is buried, I don't understand why he hasn't already burned the bones."

Sam didn't understand either. He had a theory or two, but none that made him anything but uneasy, so he didn't share. He was sure Jocelyn already had them gnawing at her, anyway.

"That old picture you showed him," Jocelyn said after a minute. "Don't lose that. John . . . it's John's favorite."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, no, I won't."

She hadn't turned on the music yet. That seemed odd. The silence dragged on, and finally Sam said, "Jocelyn, look, about what I said earlier, about you being like Dean –"

"Don't apologize. It's not an insult."

He glanced over at her. She was gazing out at the green field they were passing, pensive. He proceeded with caution. "You seemed to get pretty riled up at something you didn't think was an insult."

She looked down. She was playing with something at her ankle. "I _am _a lot like Dean. I know that. Hell, I'm proud of that. Dean . . ."

"Yeah," Sam murmured. He understood. Better than anyone else Jocelyn could find.

"It's just . . . You and I haven't really talked about it. I guess some part of me felt like we needed to."

"Talk about what?"

". . . You. Leaving."

"Jocelyn –"

"Now's not the time," she interrupted. "I don't want to talk about it now. I'm not even sure if I want to talk about it at all, when it comes down to it. Just . . . if I snap at you like that again, just know that I . . . I have a tendency to hold grudges. I'm working on it."

_I didn't want to leave you, Jocelyn. I felt so guilty. But I was eighteen . . . and I had to get out of there . . . _

But she didn't want to talk about it.

He cleared his throat and nodded at her ankle. "I didn't know you still had that."

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Yeah." She tugged up her pant leg, and a simple silver chain – the links thick enough for strength and small enough for femininity – sparkled up at Sam. "Never leave home without it."

In spite of himself, Sam felt the corners of his mouth lift up. "I remember the day my dad gave it to you."

"Oh, God, me too."

"You threw a lamp at my head."

"You had it coming!" She was talking through a grin. "John was _pissed . . ."_

"Yeah, he was. But he ended up giving you my mom's old anklet. How did that happen?"

She fell quiet for a moment. "If I remember correctly, I threw the lamp at you because . . . Well, largely because we'd been driving all day and I was tired . . . but also because you were upsetthat John had made us move before one of your, uh . . . one of your plays."

"_Anne Frank,_" Sam offered, remembering.

"Right. You said . . . You said you didn't want to be a part of this family. . . And then I grabbed that lamp and just . . . BAM. And . . . I yelled at you." Jocelyn's right fingers, the ones not playing with the anklet, tapped in a flurry on her knee. "I told you . . . I told you that I would kill to be a part of this family and that you were a lucky bastard."

Sam swallowed. He didn't remember this part.

"This was before I started getting my own motel room, so I just ran to the bathroom and locked myself in there. I heard John send you and Dean out to get dinner, and I swear to God, I thought he was going to kill me. He made me come out. He said I knew better than to throw a fit like that . . . but that was all he really said." She took a deep breath, and laughed a little as she breathed it all back out. "And then he gave me Mary's anklet."

Sam had never heard this part of the story. He had always figured John said something too harsh to Jocelyn and gave her the anklet as an apology.

"I don't know. I think . . . I think the anklet was his way of telling me that . . . God, this sounds cheesy. I think it was his way of saying that I _was _a part of the family."

They were both silent for a while. Then Sam said, "You were. You _are_."

"Haha. Hell yeah, I am," she said, her voice taking a sharp turn for the upbeat. "Thank God. I would hate to miss out on all the fun we're having."

Sam chuckled. "Yeah, me too." He was still trying to imagine his dad as Jocelyn must have seen him that night. Forgiving. Understanding. Why hadn't Sam seen more of that? Had he just forgotten about it amidst all of the crap his dad had dragged him through? Because there was a lot of crap . . .

"Hey, look," Jocelyn said after a few minutes had passed. "It'll be dark by the time we get to Jericho, so . . . drop me off at the police station. I'll get Dean out, you go light Constance Welch's fire."

"You'll get Dean out? Exactly what's your plan there?"

"Oh, nothing you would approve of, Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes."

"Jocelyn –"

"Calm down, Sam. And pull over at that quick stop up there. I want my damn coffee."

. . . . .

_**DEAN: 35-111**_

Dean leaned forward, shaking his head at the note, scribbled on the last page of his dad's journal. "I don't know how many times I gotta tell you . . . It's my high school locker combo."

There was a cop, an older man, sitting in the chair to his right. He sighed, the very picture of weariness. Poor guy. "We gonna do this all night long?"

_Probably. Unless you can believe that these are coordinates telling me to go hunt down some supernatural bastard – a spirit, a werewolf, something like that – and that you should let me go for the greater good, 'cause it might just save your ass one day. What? You mean you don't buy that?_

A new cop leaned into the open door behind the old guy. "We just got a 911. Shots fired over at Whiteford Road."

Cop Number One looked at Dean. "You have to go the bathroom?"

"No . . ."

"Good." The sound of metal on metal, and then Dean was handcuffed to the table. Terrific.

The cop left, slamming the door behind him, and Dean was alone in the small, dim room, with just his dad's journal to keep him company.

That was more than enough.

A paperclip poked out of the side of the worn old book. Dean pulled it out and gave it a smile.

. . . . .

Five minutes later, Dean found himself out in the cool air, scrambling down a ladder from the roof of the police station, his dad's journal in his jacket pocket.

Just as his boots hit the ground, he heard, "Took you long enough."

He jumped.

He had come down into an alleyway. Jocelyn was standing in the yellow light, nonchalantly leaning on a wall a few feet away and nursing at a coffee cup.

He relaxed and popped his eyebrows at her. "Gunshots? Really? You couldn't think of something a little more original?"

"Well, Dean, I was gonna tell 'em a hellhound ate my homework, but I didn't think they would buy that. Sam went to burn the bones, we need to call him."

"Yeah." He took hold of her shoulder. "First, let's get the hell outta here."

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

_11:30 p.m., Nov 2 (cont.)_

_It was dark when S and I got back to Jericho, and we still hadn't heard from D, so he dropped me off at the police station. I made a 911 call. Cops came flooding out of the building like I'd exorcised the place. D was out within minutes – picked his handcuffs with a paperclip. A cop inside had John's journal, and D got it on the way out. He says J left us coordinates. J leaving his journal like that . . . we know he's not in Jericho anymore. But that's about all we know._

_Anyway, after D busted out, he and I got a ways down the street, and D used my phone – cops got his – to call S. Conversation didn't last long. D told him about the journal and the coordinates, and then there was the sound of squealing tires from Sam's end. He quit answering D, and then D heard "I can never go home." _

_D hung up the phone. We stole a car and shagged ass to Breckenridge._


	7. Weak Spot

Sam knew appealing to the human side of angry spirits was, as a rule of thumb, a complete waste of time. But he was low on options. Down to one, really. So, he looked into the rearview mirror, caught Constance Welch's eyes, and said, "Don't do this."

The ghost ignored him, choosing instead mournfully gaze out at the crumbling house before them. "I can never go home."

Sam inhaled. Something clicked in his head. "You're scared to go home. . ."

But . . . did that make sense? Constance had driven them here, after all. Hijacked the car while Sam was on his way to burn her bones. He had ended up in the exact place he had intended to go, except now he really did not want to be here. He doubted this scenario could end well for him.

Suddenly, Constance wasn't in the rearview mirror.

Sam turned. She wasn't in the car at all.

Maybe she had left him alone. Maybe –

She materialized in the passenger seat, and she jumped on him like a carnivore.

"Hold me," she whispered, shoving him down, "I'm so cold . . ."

She _was _cold. Her icy hands ran over his chest, his neck, but Sam wasn't even mildly aroused. Terror had a tendency to kill such biological functions. "You can't kill me," he forced out as she pressed his shoulders, hard, hard enough to hurt, "I'm not unfaithful . . ." He thought of Jess, so beautiful . . . so warm. "I've never been . . ."

Constance lowered her lips to his ear. "You will be," she breathed. Then she caressed him some more and half-whined, "Just hold me . . ." And she kissed him, a deep, long kiss. Sam tried to shove her off. She didn't seem to notice, she was so much stronger than he was, but he did manage to get his hand out from under her, and he stretched, stretched, until his fingers found the keys, still in the ignition.

The keys jangled. And Constance must have heard it. She sat up and glared. Then, as spirits do, she flickered in and out like an image on a motel TV screen, and amidst the flickering, for an awful second, she was not lovely but hideous – a demon straight from hell. Then she was gone.

Sam took a deep breath.

Excruciating pain in his chest.

It ripped a cry from him. He began to claw away at his jacket. His shirt – there were holes in his shirt, and the skin below it was _on fire, _what was she doing to him, what was – ?

Constance reappeared, still on top of him, still deformed. She could no longer pass for a pretty woman, a lady done wrong and driven mad. No, she was simply a monster, and she was killing him, digging deeper into Sam's chest – he yelled louder, tried in vain to push her off, it _hurt_ – but she didn't move.

_Jess . . . Oh, God, Jess, I'm so sorry . . . I'm sorry . . ._

_ BAM BAM BAM._

Glass rained into the car. The driver's side window was gone, obliterated. Constance looked out, eyes wide, and – _BAM BAM._ She tore her hand from Sam's skin. It was a relief like he had never felt before. There were three more gunshots, rapid, and the spirit vanished.

Sam didn't take time to marvel at the fact that he was alive. He didn't even turn to look at his savior. The hunter's instinct was too strong. He sprang up, twisted the key, felt the car rumble awake, and, even though Constance was nowhere to be seen, he said for the hell of it, "I'm takin' you home."

He gunned it. The car roared forward, crushing the porch and crashing through the wall. Wood avalanched. It was loud, so loud, and then Sam and the car were inside the Welch's old living room.

. . . . .

Dean cried his brother's name as the car broke into the house, though Jocelyn could barely hear him. The pair stood staring at a huge hole where the siding of the house had been. They heard the Impala shut down. Then everything was very, very quiet.

"What the hell?" Jocelyn breathed, but Dean was already moving, gun still in hand, heading after the car, after his brother. Jocelyn snapped to and followed, jumping over debris.

"Sam!" Dean called as Jocelyn crossed into the house, coughing against all the tiny wooden splinters haunting the air.

"Yeah!" came the answer.

The moonlight didn't reach very far in here, but Constance must have turned the old lights on. It was bright enough, at least, for Jocelyn to see that the Impala had pretty much totaled the place. Dean reached the car's passenger window, which was either open or missing. "You okay?"

"I think . . ."

Dean slid his gun into the waistband of his jeans and yanked open the door as Jocelyn peered in the car. Sam was flinching, but was there blood? She couldn't see any blood. "Can you move?" Dean asked.

"Yeah . . . help me . . ."

Dean pulled Sam from the car while Jocelyn surveyed the room. She slid her Beretta from her belt. Constance was around here somewhere, had to be. She wouldn't just –

There.

The damn dead woman stood about ten feet away, staring at something in her hands – a picture frame. Jocelyn didn't ask questions. She raised her gun, aimed, and fired for the head, three rapid shots. Constance vanished. The frame fell to the floor. Then Constance was back, and she did not look happy.

By this time, Dean had Sam out of the car, standing, okay enough. The three got about two seconds to stare at Constance and consider what the hell they could do before what looked like a dresser tore over to them, all by itself, and knocked them against the Impala.

Jocelyn's breath was gone. She gasped and slammed both hands down on the dresser, but she was pinned there, all three of them were. She was in between the brothers, and she could tell by the way the piece of furniture was damn near cutting her spine in two that there was no way in hell it was letting them go without Constance's say so.

Dean was trapped. Sam was trapped. And Jocelyn knew they were all screwed.

Constance came forward. Clearly pissed off.

The lights began to flicker.

Confusion replaced anger on Constance's face, which in turn confused Jocelyn. Ghosts caused lights to flicker, that was a fact, surely Constance had figured that out by now. But slowly, slowly the ghost twisted her head around, toward the staircase across the room. And then Jocelyn heard it too. A whispering noise, the hiss of a snake . . . no, not a whisper, not a hiss . . . water. Water ran down the stairs. Trickling off the side.

Jocelyn looked at Dean. His jaw was clenched, but she could see it in his eyes – he didn't know what to make of this, either.

But there was a glow coming from the top of the staircase now. Jocelyn couldn't see the source, but Constance moved over to the foot of the stairs and looked up at it.

_"You've come home to us, Mommy."_

And then there were two children behind Constance, a boy and a girl, soaking wet and holding hands. Constance whirled and stared.

The children hugged her. Constance shrieked, throwing her head back, her hands twitching.

Then she melted. Literally melted, only on fast-forward. The children went with her. Lights flashed from the spot, and Jocelyn saw mangled, horrible forms dancing in the glow. The screaming didn't stop. Not until there was just a puddle. And darkness.

Jocelyn's exhale was a shaky one.

Dean's hands gripped the dresser. Sam followed. Together, they hurled it over. It shattered against something and the three of them were free. Jocelyn stepped away from the car, rubbing her stomach. She would have a bruise.

They wordlessly gravitated to the puddle, all that was left of Constance and her children. Jocelyn half-expected one of them to jump back out and try to snag a Winchester or a Murphy for the road. But the water was still. "So this is where she drowned her kids," she eventually said, her voice finding that oddly calm tone it often did after she nearly died.

"That's why she could never go home," Sam muttered, breathing a little hard. "She was too scared to face them."

"You found her weak spot," Dean said. "Nice work, Sammy." He slapped Sam on the chest – right where Constance had dug into him – and went back to the Impala. Jocelyn took one last look at the silver water and followed.

"Wish I could say the same for you two," Sam said from behind her. "What the hell where you guys thinking, shooting Casper in the face? Freaks."

"_I _shot her in the face. Joss probably didn't even graze the bitch, did ya, kiddo?" Dean cuffed Jocelyn's head. She punched his arm.

"Right between the eyes, Dean. It was totally badass."

"Yeah, I'm sure." He bent down, eyes scouring the Impala, and said, "I'll tell you what, Sammy, if you screwed up my car . . . I'll kill you."

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

**(From the private journal of Jocelyn Murphy)**

_11:30, Nov 2 (cont.)_

_We drove to the old Welch place in the crap car we'd taken, no sign of the Impala on the way. When we reached the house, there it was. Constance's spirit had Sam pinned down in the car. Sam was screaming by the time we got there, and Dean fired at Constance. Gun, of course, didn't do anything to her, but it must have hurt her feelings. She vanished long enough for S to decide to drive the Impala straight into the old house. _

_He was fine when D and I got in there. But Constance – BITCH – pinned us against the Impala. She was about to kill us. But then her kids show up – as ghosts, of course – covered with water. They tackle their mom, and then they all go down in these creepy-ass ghostly lights. Water is all that's left behind. _

_Bones didn't get burned, but they didn't have to be. Kids got their mother back, D's pretty sure this one's over._

_In the Impala now. Jericho's in the rearview mirror. Sam just looked up the coordinates John left for Dean. 35-111 is Blackwater Ridge, Colorado. D and I are headed there, we should make it by morning._

_S isn't coming. The interview's in ten hours._

_I thought maybe he'd change his mind. I think D did, too. _


	8. Work to Do

**(From the private journal of Jocelyn Murphy)**

_3:15 a.m., Nov 3_

_Jesus._

_Hell of a night. God, that's not – that's a fucking terrible way of putting it. There's no good way of putting it, no way that really gets it across, it's just_

_Sam's girlfriend is dead. Her name was Jessica. _

_We dropped Sam off at his place. Which was bad enough. I don't – can't even remember, really, what that was like. Yeah, it was bad, but not really, not compared to the rest of the night. And it didn't stick, but – I'll get to that._

_We left. I was following Dean on the bike. He pulled over, so I did, too, of course, and he told me to get in the car, something was wrong. I got in, we peeled back to Sam's apartment building, because Dean said the radio had gone off, his watch had stopped, and, turns out, so had mine. Bad signs all around. _

_We got back to Sam's place, and there was a fire upstairs. We could see it from the street. Dean ran inside. Made me stay back._

**. . . . .**

**. . . . .**

**. . . . .**

Jocelyn stepped from the car and stumbled, lost her breath. Smoke billowed from the second floor, a phantom. Blacker than the sky behind it. The smell was the worst part, though. It wasn't like cigarette smoke, or burning-bones smoke, this was different. Horrifying. And it would be the piece of tonight she would remember most poignantly in the days to come.

It was Dean slamming his door, Dean swearing, that kicked her into gear, really. Dean was in action, so she was in action, that's how it had to be –

Except Dean came around the car and yelled for her to stay where she was. She kept moving anyway, because – Sam.

"Jocelyn, _stay here!"_

She stopped that time. Couldn't help herself. _Listen to Dean, _that's what John always told her, every time they split up, she could hear him saying it now, _Listen to Dean._ Dean mocked her about it. Except when it actually mattered. Then he got dead serious over it. Dead serious. As serious as a fire in Sam's apartment –

Dean was gone. Gone, and into the burning house.

Why was Dean going after him? Why wasn't Sam running out?

Jocelyn watched flames emerge from the smoke. The fire licked its way out the windows and up the walls of the building and, distantly, she worried, because Sam had his interview in just a few hours.

**. . . . .**

**. . . . .**

**. . . . .**

_3:15 a.m., Nov 3 (cont.)_

_Dean ran inside. He came out a minute later, holding Sam up. Half-dragging him. He didn't want to leave. _

_Jessica had been pinned to the ceiling. And then she burned. Just like Mary. The same thing. The __SAME GODDAMN THING._

_Sam's not good. He's just really not good._

_But he's with us. He was a mess when he came out of the house, of course, but then he got still. Stoic. He still is. It's almost scary – no, it IS scary – but he can act however the hell he wants right now, whatever helps him, I don't care, the point is, after the firefighters put the flames out, Sam was ready to go. With us. To Colorado, to the coordinates John left us._

_All he would really say is that we've got work to do._


End file.
